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Taking Back Sunday, The Color Fred, and now, the Initials. Fred Mascherino has sung with several bands. But he hasn't changed. He's the same guy from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, who grew up camping with his dad and drives a Volkswagen Rabbit that runs on veggie oil. Oh, he's a vegan, too, and likes to bug his bandmates about stepping lightly (as in lowering their carbon footprint).
The Initials are still recording their first album, and plan to play their first show on Wednesday, Oct. 28. The sound is described as American rock revival, and many of the songs are about fire.
Fire? Mascherino's hometown of Coatesville was terrorized by a series of arson fires in 2008 and early 2009. There were about 50 fires in all, and a number of arrests this spring by the police.
Mascherino, who lives next door to Coatesville in West Chester, says all the fires have made for stressful—and inspiring—times.
"Besides living near there, I have a lot of family living there," he said of Coatesville.
"It would always happen in the middle of the night ... So I started writing songs about the anxiety of not being able to sleep."
The songs are mostly fictional, about a couple trying to get through their regular life during the day, and stay awake at night to protect their home. "We'll sleep when we are dead," goes the chorus for "The Hills of Birmingham," a demo track from the new band.
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| Courtesy of Another Reybee Production |
"I started writing songs when I was about 10 years old," Mascherino said. "And then after years and years of it, you say to yourself, 'I've written about every girlfriend scenario I can think of. Let me go to another part of my life.'"
Mascherino's life these days includes driving a 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit that's been converted to run on veggie oil.
"I go to the Chinese restaurant in my town and the guy leaves the grease out for me and I take it home and filter it in my garage and it's the gas in the car," he said of his Rabbit. He has another tank on the car for biodiesel, in case the veggie oil runs low. The car gets up to 50 mpg.
He says the car was an experiment, to see how well he could get around by using something besides foreign fossil fuels. It's worked pretty well, but has turned out to be too messy for touring, he says.
Mascherino said he's taken a biodiesel bus on tour with The Color Fred, but "it's hard to be green in a bus at all."
The Initials are playing four shows as a test run, beginning Wednesday. The band is using a van to get around, towing a trailer with their gear, and buying carbon offsets through a company called Native Energy, which builds wind farms on Indian reservations. They also plan to recycle along the way, even if that means keeping stuff in bags until they can find a drop-off site.
"I've been very passionate about it for years," he says of the environment, "and I've tried to do things in my personal life and with the band, including switching from plastic utensils to reusable silverware on the road. "It just takes one person to get many people. It's a matter of converting habits."
The Initials don't stand for anything, by the way.
"We were just looking for a name that sort of left some question and something where we would have to earn what it means on our own," said Mascherino.
What does the band want the name to mean?
"For one thing, we all grew up in this punk-emo scene and we're kind of looking to do something new that doesn't sound like that anymore, so it's much more straight-forward rock, somewhere between Coldplay and the Foo Fighters," he says.
Mascherino will be sharing the mike in the Initials with Andy Jackson, from Hot Rod Circuit. Other members include bassist Steven Lucarelli, who came up with the name, and drummer Anthony Martone.
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